Currently, battery power conservation for mobile terminals operating in a wireless communications system is a significant concern, especially for wireless service providers. This is due primarily to the significant amounts of power expended for wireless transmission by the mobile terminal transmitter. Revenue cannot be generated if mobile terminals cannot complete calls due to their battery power being exhausted. One manual solution is the use of auxiliary power adapters to provide the power source needed for operation of the mobile terminal. However, this solution burdens wireless subscribers with additional costs and requires them to maintain a close proximity of the mobile terminal to the power source, to guarantee wireless service. Passive solutions to the problem involve scheduling the mobile terminal for sleep mode operation. The mobile terminal is instructed by the servicing base station to "wake up" at predetermined intervals to receive RF transmissions from the base station and to transmit RF signals to the base station. Although this solution does provide some relief, it also leads to significant over-the-air delays in the communications link since the base station and mobile terminal must continually buffer messages for longer periods. This delay is magnified further in a wireless communications system that operates on a reservation based protocol. Such a protocol directs mobile terminals to use a limited number of channels at specific times to reduce interference and collisions in the wireless link.
Due to the limitations of the prior art, there is a need for a solution that takes a more active, direct role in managing mobile terminals operating with low battery power levels.